Le mot du jour : “Sauter du coq à l’âne”
Well, no food today, but farm animals 🙂
“Sauter du coq à l’âne” means “to jump from rooster to donkey” and is used when someone makes a jump in the conversation, going from one subject to another abruptly.
Ex : “On parlait du temps quand il a sauté du coq à l’âne et s’est mis à parler de foot.” (We were talking about the weather when he changed the subject and started talking about football).
Here is the story behind it : up to the 14th century, “asne”(duck) and “âne” (donkey) were pronounced in exactly the same way.
So the expression was “sauter du coq à l’asne” (when a rooster got confused and jump on a duck instead of a hen) and described people talking without making sense.The word “asne” for ducks disappeared, and only “âne” (donkey) was left.
So now we have a rooster and a donkey in our story 😀